Selling $600 frogs -- to save them from poachers

View of a gliding tree frog (Agalychnis spurrelli) at the amphibian conservation center Jambatu, in the locality of San Rafael, southeast Quito on July 4, 2017. -AFP

QUITO: Poachers in Ecuador have long known the hefty prices their country’s rare frogs can fetch. But now environmentally conscious firms are starting to sell the amphibians too -- to try to save them from the black market and threatened extinction.

In San Rafael, just outside the capital Quito, the scientific company Wikiri is raising 12 species of frog. Some are native only to Ecuador, while others are at risk at disappearing from their natural habitat elsewhere.